Mario Versus Marathon FAQ…’n’ stuff

Q: What is this?
A: This is the fourth Gamemarathons.com Versus Marathon, now featuring the Mario series! Two teams, Ocean City Trinity and Triple Speed Runners (but we’re open to more teams), will be competing against each other to see who can do better at the games, or rather, who can finish them first. Beyond that, we’ll be interacting with anyone interested enough to watch and taking donations from the viewers for charity – the more people donate, the longer we keep playing!

Q: When does this all take place?
A: The marathon starts on Friday, January 14 at 6PM US Eastern time. Initially it will last 60 hours, but can be extended up to 72 based on how much we raise in donations.

Q: What games will be played?
A: You can bet the following games will be played, in this order (unless your donations force us to do otherwise — keep reading to see how that works):
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario World
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels
Super Mario RPG
Super Mario 64
Super Mario Galaxy 1
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Super Mario Sunshine
Paper Mario
Super Mario Land
Super Mario Land 2
New Super Mario Bros.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
Luigi’s Mansion
Yoshi’s Island DS
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
Super Paper Mario

Q: Why isn’t (insert other Mario game here) on your list?
A: One or more of the following reasons: we don’t consider it a true Mario game, none of us really like the game much, or we didn’t have enough time to play it.

Q: I haven’t played (insert Mario game on the list above) before, can you tell me more about it?
A: Sure.  Check the About the Games section for info on that.

Q: Will these games be played multiplayer?
A: That’s up to the teams to decide. The only ones that seems likely on, though, is the Wii games (New Super Mario Bros. Wii and both Galaxy games) since they’re the only ones where there are clear advantages to doing that.

Q: Are you guys really good at these games?
A: Depends who you ask. We have people that have played these games religiously, and we have people that may be playing them for the first time. Separately, we have people that have read and re-read strategy guides on these games, and we have people that refuse on principle to look at them. In the end it will depend on which game and who’s playing it, but a good “in general” answer would be “Sorta, but not really.”

Q: Why’d you pick Mario?
A: The technical answer is that Triple Speed Runners, the winners of the last versus marathon, nominated three game series (the other two being Metroid and Mega Man), and when we were unable to come to a consensus amongst both teams, we left it up to a viewer poll, which ended with Mario winning.  Beyond that, though, Mario’s probably the most well known video game series in existence and one of the highest quality-to-crap ratios out of many long running series, especially for one that delves into as many genres as it does.

Q: How does the competition side of this work?
A: It’s primarily a speed run competition.  All teams will play the games starting at the same point, and whoever finishes first wins 5 points for that game.  Other teams have five minutes (or however long the end credits take, whichever is longer) to finish the game from there for 3 points.  In either case, all teams then go to the next game.  Once all games have been finished by one team, then they can go back individually to finish any incomplete games, again for 3 points.  The team with the most points after time is up wins!

Q: Where’d you get this format from?
A: It’s respectfully adapted from another marathon group called Extra Lives.

Q: Why isn’t the achievement point system returning?
A: Some of the players involved in this were dissatisfied with achievements, mostly because it was more difficult to keep track of or that they required extra objectives that had little to do with progressing through the game (your mileage may vary if these are valid complaints, but they were certainly prevalent enough).  So we proposed some alternate methods, polled our viewers on which they would like to see more, and speed run won.  Whether or not we’ll actually continue to use this method will depend on how well it’s received this time around.

Q: How far into these games do players need to go?  Are there any special conditions?
A: The primary objective for each game is to reach the end credits, by any means necessary, with no severe glitch exploitation or sequence breaking (but minor glitches or sequence breaks are okay).  We’ve also disallowed warping on the 2D platformers as to not make them so short.  On a per-game basis, that breaks down to this:
Super Mario Bros: Defeat Bowser; no warp zones
Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels: Defeat Bowser; no warp zones, includes world 9 and A-D
Super Mario Bros: 2: Defeat Wart; no warp zones
Super Mario Bros: 3: Defeat Bowser; no warp whistles
Super Mario Land: Defeat Tatanga; no extra game
Super Mario Land 2: Defeat Wario; no easy mode
Super Mario World: Defeat Bowser; no Star Road
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island: Defeat Bowser
Super Mario 64: Defeat Bowser; 70 star minimum
Luigi’s Mansion: Defeat King Boo
Super Mario Sunshine: Defeat Bowser; Shadow Mario must be beaten in all other levels
Yoshi’s Island DS: Defeat Bowser
New Super Mario Bros.: Defeat Bowser; no warp cannons
New Super Mario Bros. Wii: Defeat Bowser; no warp cannons
Super Mario Galaxy: Defeat Bowser; 60 star minimum
Super Mario Galaxy 2: Defeat Bowser; 70 star minimum
Super Mario RPG: Defeat Smithy; all stars found
Paper Mario: Defeat Bowser; all star spirits found
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door: Defeat Shadow Queen; all crystal stars found
Super Paper Mario: Defeat Bleck; all stars found

Q: What does the winner get?
A: The right to nominate the games to be played for the next versus marathon. And bragging rights.

Q: What about the loser?
A: They have to do the Mario. Like in the cartoon.

Q: Who are we donating to?
A: The charity is called DC Outreach. Their focus is on a rare disease called Dyskeratosis Congenita and they’re looking to research, treat, and support families of someone with this disease. Visit them here.

Q: How much of my donation goes to them?
A: All of it. Our only role in the donation process is that we set up the widget that donates to them. We can’t do anything with the money you send them.

Q: Is my donation tax deductible?
A: Yes.

Q: How will donations extend the time limit?
A: You can buy extra hours for the event. The first hour costs $10, and each hour after costs $10 more than the one before it. So the second hour costs $20 (resulting in a grand total of $30), the third costs $30 (so $60 total), and…maybe this would be easier to show the rest in this chart?

Hour	Cost	Cumulative cost
1	$10.00	$10.00
2	$20.00	$30.00
3	$30.00	$60.00
4	$40.00	$100.00
5	$50.00	$150.00
6	$60.00	$210.00
7	$70.00	$280.00
8	$80.00	$360.00
9	$90.00	$450.00
10	$100.00	$550.00
11	$110.00	$660.00
12	$120.00	$780.00

Q: Who out of your team is participating in the marathon?
A: The current roster consists of Tom C, Sarah L, Dan L, Bern L, Jon G, Nick B, and Kyle C.

Q: Which versions of the games will you be playing?
A: All of the NES games are expected to be played using Super Mario All-Stars (the original SNES version), and all other games available on the Wii’s Virtual Console will be played off that.  Everything else, though, is from the original release of the game.

Q: Haven’t you done a Mario marathon before?
A: Yep.  It was almost exactly two years before this one.  No, we didn’t plan that.  Funny, huh?

Q: What other marathons have you done?
A: Check the Archives section for the full report on that, but in list form, we’ve also done Sonic, Devil May Cry, Suikoden (though it wasn’t technically a marathon as it was a nightly stream), Mega Man, Star Fox, Banjo-Kazooie, and Legend of Zelda, with those last three being versus marathons.